The 3.1˜10.6 GHz band has received less attention than the unlicensed 7 GHz bandwidth, such as the 60 GHz-band as regards multi-gigabit wireless communication. One reason is that a conventional single carrier based analog modem is ineffective with the 3.1˜10.6 GHz band's relatively wide baseband bandwidth over carrier frequency. In addition, the low equivalent isotropically radiated power (EIRP) limit enforced by the FCC would appear to render the band unsuitable for high performance applications.
Previous work in the 3.1˜10.6 GHz band has been either impulse-based or compliant with WiMedia's MB-OFDM. An impulse-based method has a low spectral efficiency, and is susceptible to inter-symbol interference for high data-rate applications. The MB-OFDM compliant approach is a diversity improved narrow-band communication, which only utilizes 528 MHz of the 7.5 GHz RF spectrum at a given time-slot. The fast frequency hopping requirement of the standard also adds significant overhead for system implementation.
What is needed, therefore, is a more efficient receiver architecture for multi-gigabit wireless communication in the 3.1˜10.6 GHz band.